Dance & Drink & Screw

I was leaving the office this evening - carrying two bags of groceries while trying to slide on my headphones - when my iPhone escaped my fingers and ran down the staircase.

"Oh fuck!" I shouted.

"Oops," said one of my co-workers, on his way to the kitchen.

The thing still works so I'm OK for now. I pay insurance to O2 - really hope they cover most of the cost of a new phone, if not the whole thing.

I woke up at 2.30am this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. Have felt knackered and irritated all day.

My mom asked me to send an e-mail to people who previously stayed at her guesthouse in Brasil (just over 200 e-mails) - an invitation to the local town's annual celebration of Jesus starting next week.

Yahoo wasn't too happy with me - they prevented the email from going out. So I tried with a Google account and got shut down.

Can any of you recommend an e-mail system which will allow me to send out this massive, friendly, Bcc invitation? I was hoping to get some kind of periodical marketing newsletter going for her...

Note: I don't have my own hosted site.

Merci in advance!

I haven't had internet at home for weeks now (months?) I was hopping onto neighbours' broadband until they found out and went into lock down. I can't really read Livejournal at work... so I'm a little out of the loop.

Let me know if I missed anything. The Bumfluff Telecom (BT) engineer should be visiting us today so, hopefully (fingers crossed), Kevin and I will be back to our crack whoring ways tomorrow.

BIG SLOPPY KISSES

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Freshly baked bread with salty butter. Brasilian coffee with milk and sugar.

If I didn't have Kevin waiting for me in London, I wouldn't fly back tonight. I have some wonderful friends in Britain, and a job I enjoy, but I have my family here - uncles and aunts that are loving substitutes for parents, and cousins that are like favourite siblings. I'd miss my friends in London, and all the wonderful things the city has to offer, but being in Brasil makes me realize how much I'm missing out by not being with my family.

Then there's my mom's guesthouse, growing each day, needing my help, with an orchard to work in, trees heavy with fruit, birds singing their little throats raw, the mountains in the distance, vigilant dachshunds at our feet and the paragliders over our heads. We are building cottages on our mountain, a swimming pool, a SPA (sauna, massage room and weights room), and a house for my brother and his family. There's a lot of work to be done and I feel like I'm needed. But there's also a much slower pace of life, good organic food that we grow ourselves, our library, brasilian soap operas on TV at night, and that promise of a U.F.O. landing any minute now.

Then I think of bringing Kevin to Brasil; everyone in my family asks how he's doing. I've never said anything, but they all know about us. They like him (he was here in 2000 for three months). We could build a studio for him to work in and dedicate himself to his illustration work, and find someone in town to teach him Portuguese. But would it be hard for him to get anything more than a tourist visa? I don't know. I should look into it.

I spoke on the phone to live_life_like last night, who lives in a beautiful coastal town in one of Brasil's southern states. She's the one who introduced me to LJ and it makes me sad that we weren't able to meet this time around. I need enough time in Brasil to travel south and visit her. I need enough time by the sea.

It better be sunny and warm in London when I land tomorrow.

Victoria Park has these large asphalt lanes flanked by tall trees. One of them separates Regent's canal running North-South and the lake that dominates the southern side of the park. As I'm walking home, down this lane, a skein of Canadian geese fly over my head, followed by two pigeons late for the party. It's that glimpse into another world that you sometimes get when you are mellow for home, too much oxygem has hit your brain and the sun plays tricks on the clouds.

I found a bench facing the lake and pulled out my journal. Checked out the boys that came and went - some jogging, some strutting - until I heard a rambling drunk approach and ducked into my journal, hoping he wouldn't sit beside me. Two benches away, he found a young guy also drinking beer, plugged into his iPod. The young guy didn't seem to care when the drunk sat close to him and went into a monologue about their different choices of drink. A cute Jack Russell terrier, white-coated with black spots, belonging to the drunk who'd just sat down, played between their feet with a plastic 500ml Coca-Cola bottle.

The Jack Russell played a solitary game of throw-and-catch until the bottle landed in the lake. He ran to the edge and stared in desbelief as the bottle slowly drifted away. A whine grew in his throat as he edged back and forth, until it spilled out as a low bark. It grew louder, louder, and louder, until he was in doggy hysterics.

His drunk owner couldn't care less, but the people on the other benches stopped what they were doing to watch the drama unfold. The bottle, at first static once it was a few feet away, slowly began to drift back to the edge. The closer it got, the louder his barks grew. His little paws splodged no further than the scum-coated border, his black eyes never left what was so desiredly close. Not even a dog unflatteringly sniffing his butt, or a family pushing a pram who stopped for a minute to giggle at his despair, took his mind off the disaster.

All hail the Great Saint Bernard in the Sky! The bottle was finally at reach, so close to his snout - if only he were to edge a little bit in, get his paws wet, open his jaws and... off the bottle went again, disturbed by his frenetic movements in the shallows, drifting away from his reach.

'Go on boy! Go get it, boy!' Shouted his drunk owner from the bench, suddenly hooked like everyone else. But the little thing didn't; he barked and barked until I felt it was a giant pessimist lesson, in the molds of Beckett, on what happened to anyone in this life who chased a dream.

BUT THEN HE JUMPED! In less than 30 seconds he had the bottle in his possession and, dripping wet, was running up and down as if he'd won the canine lottery's jackpot. I nearly clapped.

One of the reasons I stopped taking ecstasy was an article in The Face magazine, in 1998, that said ecstasy caused long-term brain damage plus depression (they claimed a drop in serotonin production over time for ecstasy users.) Even Pulp recorded a song around then, "Sorted for Eez and Whizz", which echoed that fear of "leaving your brain behind in a field".

But according to the last Horizon show, a group of scientists who have been studying the drug for over ten years have come to the conclusion that it's one of the most harmless out there - more so than marijuana, alcohol or cigarettes, for example, and just slightly more dangerous than poppers (you can only die from it if you dehydrate). All those past media claims turned out to be urban legends.

This calls for a celebration! :-)

Ecstasy has always been my favourite drug (especially when in its pure MDMA form - not mixed with speed, etc.) My best memories from Hong Kong and Sao Paulo's clubs were the ecstasy fuelled nights I shared with my friends. Sometimes, the party never left our own apartments. It may have affected negatively our taste in music (I seem to have a Renaissance compilation at home which I bought purely for getting high). We are all still alive today, blissfully free of Prozac or its derivatives.

The documentary had some damning evidence on alcohol and cigarettes (which everyone already knows), but it especially burst the marijuana bubble. Studies have already been published linking pot to gum and lung disease, but these scientists claim that new research shows a link between the appearance of psychosis and long-term cannabis use. I'm the first one to admit that I enjoy a joint once in a while, but to me it has always been a drug that should be used with other people - like sharing a bottle of wine - instead of smoking/ingesting it by yourself every day. A treat for the weekend, for that special get together, rather than a daily escape from reality. I was a pothead for a while in university - the wake & bake kind - and I experienced all the negative side-effects even when I wasn't smoking: paranoia, loss of memory, loss of concentration. In the end, I realized I was psychologically addicted to it and it wasn't fun any more.

This is not to say I'll be showing up tonight at Camden, looking for a bag of pills; but it makes me feel more excited about the possibilities in the future if I get the chance to purchase some MDMA (apparently, a pill goes for £1-5?!?!)

Meet me on the dancefloor.

OzBus is a new travel company that provides a regular overland bus service between London and Sydney, Australia. The first bus departed on 16 September, carrying a mixture of people, including a writer from The Guardian. Every two weeks she'll be writing a column, documenting the trip. Her first piece is here.

I feel like signing up for one of their trips! The idea of sitting on my ass for 84 days is not compelling, but the sights and the adventures shared with a group of people make me think that it could be one of those "life-changing" type of trips, where you make friends for life and discover new things about yourself (i.e. the endurance to sit on your ass for 84 days). It's also a little bit like being a Big Brother contestant, only you don't have a public baying for your blood, nor fellow bedmates as thick as shit. And no money at the end of the rainbow. And no cameras... Ok, I guess it's not that similar to Big Brother.

Visiting dozens of countries; camping under the stars; meeting people from all over the world... it's a universe away from this grey London outside my window.

My first credit card[1] arrived yesterday. I've been thinking about my Amazon Wish List, wondering about a paid LJ account and dreaming of a digital camera.

Oh, and I'll be unemployed in about a month's time.


1. The credit card I had in university doesn't count since it was linked to my father's account and purely for emergency situations (i.e. purchase of new boots, trips to Florence and hotels in Buffalo, New York.)